Okay friends! This is the budget you’ve all been waiting for (okay, maybe not everyone, but I know there are lots of you who have been eager for us to get a house payment so we’ll be more relatable).
Well folks, we’ve got a mortgage now, and it’s no joke!
What’s also not a joke is our current internet situation. We knew that getting internet to our new house would be a challenge, but we felt good about the house and were confident that where there’s a will, there’s a way.
We knew that “way” might require spending $5K to build a tower high enough to reach fixed wireless or paying thousands of dollars to extend the cable internet line so it reaches our house. In addition to the cost, there’s also the time factor. Right now the current rough estimate is $6K and 4+ months of construction time (mostly waiting for permits) after we have the cash to put down.
So now I blog from my car. Your heard that right. I sit in my car and use free internet around town so I can continue to blog. All because I love you. (And we’ve got to pay for internet somehow!)
Back to February’s budget.
As expected, it was a little bit of a doozie, with moving and all. Without looking through the three and a half years of budget archives here, I’m going to guess that this was our highest month for our grocery budget and for eating out.
Plus, there were moving expenses, albeit small ones since it wasn’t too involved.
Here are all the details!
Income
Our total income for February was $14,581. Since we live on last month’s income, this is income that we haven’t used yet. We will be budgeting and spending it in during March.
Attorney Income (Day Job)– $5,509 Mr. SixFiguresUnder has been working full-time as an attorney for the state of California since the fall of 2015. His actual take-home pay was $4,407. but I add back in the cost of the benefits (insurance, dental, vision, parking, union dues and retirement) that are automatically taken out of his check so that I can show them to you in our budget below.
Attorney Income (Private Practice)– $6,960– On top of working full-time, my husband has his own private law practice on the side (crazy, I know!). He started it last year to help speed up our debt payoff. His income fluctuates greatly from month to month. This was a higher month. After an estimated 30% for taxes ($2,088), that leaves $4,872.
My Income (Blog)– $2,112 The income that I report is the income that I received this month minus all of my blogging expenses. This was one of my lower months, as the past months of taking time off in December and being sick in January are catching up to me. Of this, I set 30% ($634) aside for self-employment taxes and the remainder ($1,478) goes into the family budget.
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If you’re looking for a tool to track your own blogging income and expenses, check out the Blog Finance Spreadsheets. And if you’re looking to increase your own blog income, check out 7 Surefire Ways to Increase Your Blog Income Overnight.
Spending
Each month we budget down to zero using last month’s income. When we started doing this, it literally changed our lives–in a big way! For more about how living on last month’s income works and how you can get started, check out my free Guide to Getting a Month Ahead Financially.
Our spending in February came from the income we earned in January. Here’s how we spent money in February:
Tithing– $1,075 We happily pay a 10% tithe on our total income from the previous month (January). You can read more about why we paid tithing even when we were in debt. Since we pre-paid a big chunk of tithing at the end of 2016 (for tax reasons), this didn’t actually come out of out pockets this month, but we’re keeping track so we know when we’ve reached the end of our $8,000 of pre-paid tithing.
Other Giving– $80 Other charitable donations this month.
Mortgage/Rent– $2,500 Here it is! Our first month of paying this mortgage! Our payment is actually slightly less than this, but I like round numbers, so we decided to just pay a nice even $2,500 each month, which shaves some years off the mortgage, even with such a small adjustment.
Electricity– $38 There were only a few days of the billing cycle on our first bill, which was nice to ease us into having an electric bill.
Water– $30 We haven’t had a water bill yet, and have no idea what it will be like (my in-laws have a well), but we set aside $30 in a sinking fund (aka category in our YNAB budget) to soften the blow for when the bill comes.
Internet– $200 This is kind of a sensitive subject, like I mentioned in the beginning. We’re setting this aside for a hefty installation charge that will be coming in the future so that out internet-less new home can get connected.
Republic Wireless Cell Phones– $30 We’ve been using Republic Wireless as our cell phone carrier for over two years now. This covers the cost of service for both our phones, including all taxes and fees (we’re on the Republic Refund plan). If your cell phone bill is killing you, I definitely recommend that you check them out!
Health Insurance– $408 We have insurance through my husband’s employer. This is the portion of the insurance premium that his employer does not cover. It includes health, dental and vision insurance premiums.
Car Insurance– $169 We are currently paying insurance on three vehicles (we will be retiring our old van soon thankfully). Our auto insurance at USAA is fabulous! In addition to the wonderful coverage, they also give us dividends at the end of the year, which is always a nice treat. We’re able to get insurance with USAA because my husband’s father was in the service years ago. If you or your parents were in the military, you’re probably eligible for USAA too!
Renters Insurance– $14 Our last month of paying renters insurance! If only homeowners insurance was this cheap! 😉
Food– $395 Like I mentioned in the beginning, it was a bad month for groceries. Part of the problem was living at two houses. On the weekends we were at the new house and during the week we were in the basement. I had to keep both houses stocked with the essentials, which also meant more trips to the store. We also bought some convenience foods that we normally don’t ever buy. I was surprised to get some real pushback from my kids about it too. I thought they would be excited (and at first they were, as it was such a novelty), but then they complained that it was gross and homemade was way better.
Gas– $483 While my husband’s commute is down to just under an hour, I have a commute now too—taking the kids to school, which is an hour round trip. Some days I go hang out at my in-laws, so that I don’t have to go all the way home while the kids are at school. It’s worth it to us, though, to not make the kids switch schools mid-year.
Parking– $155 Working downtown means paying for parking. It comes straight out of my husband’s paycheck, which means it is paid for with pre-tax dollars, a small consolation.
Clothing– $49 I made the mistake (or I scored big, depending on how you look at it) of walking by the clearance end-of-season clothing clearance racks. I found some great deals for my kids for next year. I also got some clothes for my older daughter’s birthday, but some will be returned depending on the sizes and colors that work best.
Household– $162 This is another category that got out of control. For example, I bought new tire chains before my husband went on a winter camping trip (which can’t be returned) because I couldn’t find the chains from our old van (and we weren’t sure if they’d fit the new van). Hubby came home found them right off the bat and they fit. That was $74 that we didn’t need to spend, for example. Some of these are minor “we just got a new house purchases” like additional bathroom trash cans from the dollar store. All major new house purchases are in another category below.
Fun– $30 As a special treat, we took the kids out to eat at a buffet for lunch one day when they got out of school early. Another time, we got a Redbox movie once for the kids to watch while we painted.
Car Repair– $739 We got new tires on the van and got some random problem with the power steering fluid reservoir fixed (it was making a terrible noise).
Car Registration– $83 The van’s registration was due. It was a little less than expected because there was money leftover from the title transfer that was applied to the registration.
Medical– $0 We definitely recognize this as a blessing that we are all healthy and generally have very, very few medical expenses each year.
Moving– $180 This includes renting a Uhaul, paying for its gas, and buying a much deserved dinner at In-n-Out after a long day of heavy lifting.
Home Improvement– $453 We put new door knobs on our exterior doors, painted the walls in most rooms, and hired a chimney sweep for a cleaning and safety inspection.
Furniture– $471 We got some great second-hand furniture including a couch, two loveseats, armchair, three wooden stools and a desk. I also got this vacuum and this stove pipe thermometer new on Amazon. They’re not exactly furniture, but that’s how I’m categorizing it for the budget!
Retirement– $539 With my husband’s state job, this amount comes directly out of his paycheck and into his state retirement fund. While we have some retirement savings from before law school, we hadn’t contributed for several years while in school and paying off student loans. It’s nice to see our retirement funds growing again.
College Savings– $100 We contribute $25 per month per child to 529 accounts. It’s not much, but it’s a start. More on our decision to start saving for college in this post.
Savings Goal
Here’s a quick look at our progress on our current savings goals.
In February, we added back $2,000 of the $3,000 that we borrowed from our emergency fund when we closed on our house.
Right now we have a little over $2,000 in our tax savings account. Yikes!
We have LOTS of work to do!
How About You?
- I’d love to hear about how your budget and/or debt repayment went in February!
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I always look forward to reading your monthly report. It motivates me to find ways to cut costs in our household. It’s amazing to see how your family has increased drastically over the past few years, but you still maintain the same lifestyle.
Keep up the good work!
Wow for moving I think your slightly inflated groceries are still at a great number. When we moved, I swear we blew atleast 1K on eating out almost every night. We finished February making great debt progress, down almost 100K.
Also, how is Republic Wireless working for you now that you are in an Internet-less location?
So you can’t even get DSL internet? That usually comes over a typical phone line, doesn’t it?
I know you had a lot of expenses this month, but the good thing is that many of them are one-time (like furniture, car repairs (let’s hope!). And your income should be more than enough to cover the basic expenses and leave some leftover for the tax payment.
Our budget was okay in February, though we spent more in different occasional expenses than I had wanted. The good thing was that I finished our taxes, and this month was able to throw $4,500 at our student loans from our tax return!
Stephanie, I think all considering, you did phenominal! I’ve never seen such low moving expenses in my life! So proud of you. 🙂 You are SUCH a sweet mommy for sacrificing to keep the kids in their school for the rest of the year..I would have done the same. Glad to hear it’s only until the end of the school year. (At first I thought it would be for forever, but maybe your new home is NOT in the boonies anymore?) 🙂
That’s too cute that the kids love your cooking best. I’m so glad you are feeling better and this WAS a fun financial report to read.
Keep up the good work!!!
XOXO Liz
It’s interesting that your husband has a day job and also runs a private practice doing the same thing, and that his employer is OK with that. There are certain fields, and I always thought that law was definitely one of them, where such a thing would be completely prohibited. Interesting to hear that it’s not the case for him.
My husband’s day job is a completely different type of law than his private practice. There is no cross over and no conflict of interest. His private practice is doing the same thing he did before getting the job with the state. In his job with the state he deals with entities, and in his private practice he woks with individuals (in a completely unrelated area of law). He made sure that he could continue to do private work for his old clients (and future clients) before taking the job with the state. 🙂
As a side note–I completely get conflict of interest and attorneys have to be very careful. However, many do not know this, but law is one of the few fields where employers cannot put too many restrictions, such as noncompetes on lawyers who leave one job for another. I realize that is not the case here.
I had a private practice (my main source of income for many years). We relocated to a large city for my husband’s job. I have since transitioned into corporate law in house (for a larger company), but still maintain a little side business for individuals/small businesses through my old firm structure. All parties are aware and there is no possibility of conflict of interest because there is no crossover in the types of legal services I do at my day job and in solo practice. This “practice” (no pun intended) is quite common for attorneys. Many attorneys pick up solo work, teach, or serve as consultants in other capacities. Sadly, often the salaries at the day jobs are just not enough to support a family and/or aggressively pay off student loans, unless you work at Big Firm. Less than 5% of attorneys hold these jobs and most don’t even want to work at a Big Law firm.
I’m sorry to hear about your wireless struggles, it must be stressful on top of all of the other stressors of moving! Congratulations on the new home though, I’m excited to see your journey now with the mortgage!
Our neighbours had to get a tower put in so they could get WiFi. Of course here since the National Broadband Service is a government infrastructure initiative, it was practically free for them. I think they had to pay $50. Yay, socialism! Our house is two storeys so they just had to put our dish on top of the second storey. It’s the smallest dish too, much smaller and cuter than our old satellite internet dish. (Speaking of, satellite might be a decent option for you, too.)
Australia for the win!
We have had satellite internet before. We had it two internet services ago at my inlaws’. Our main issues with satellite internet are speed and limited bandwidth (so we have to budget our usage).I would be up for having it in the meantime, but it’s a 2 year contract and another installation fee, so we’ll just hold out for the good stuff. 🙂
Congratulations Again 🙂
A mortgage means you have your own space!
Can’t get over that you are blogging from your car…..dedication for sure.
Is your house located in a crevice?
Ha ha! Kind of, Libby! We are in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, so there are lots of “crevices” that don’t get service. Our house happens to be in one of them! 😉
I prefer changing schools mid-year. I’ve done it myself several times. I actually preferred it over moving to a new school at the start of a new school year. At the start of the school year there are lots of new people. When you move mid-year you and your siblings are the only new kids. I found that helped in making friends because everyone notices and is interested in finding out more about the new kid.
I know it’s really old school but when we moved to a cabin in the woods almost 8 years ago and I was still blogging we had to go with dial-up. When I went into town I’d use wifi at places in town but the dial-up let me do stuff mid-week and check email. You could look into that while you’re waiting for your better connection.
That’s a good point Amy! Having never changed schools myself, I hadn’t thought of that. My kids are all really outgoing and friendly (and young– 3rd grade and under), so making friends at a new school has not even come up as a potential issue. They are more sad about leaving their friends and their involvement at their current school, which is why we’re letting them finish off the year rather than pull them out mid year.
I hadn’t even thought about dial up in the interim. I didn’t know anyone still did that! 🙂
I love that you wrote this in your car! 🙂 Thanks for sharing this information, these posts are my favorites!
My kids don’t like the conscience foods either, My Dad owns a grocery store and in the freezer at the store they have a bin of food that is damaged or past dates that I can use. I usually cook from scratch, last week I had a dinner that was less than perfect,. I made tomato soup with some dehydrated carrots in it and didn’t cook it long enough to completely soften the carrots. While eating dinner I told the kids there other option was frozen stuff from the store, they said they would rather eat the crunchy tomato soup.
That’s neat that your dad can get you free food from his store! 🙂 I’m glad my kids aren’t the only ones picky about convenience foods!
Considering you just moved, this is an awesome budget! I know when we first moved, ours looked WAY worse. I’m shocked you’re having so much trouble with internet?! That must be tough since you are a blogger.
We live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, so all it takes is a hill or ridge to cut you off and because it’s somewhat in the boonies, you don’t have all the options of the city.
So exciting about the house-new payment and all! I transported my kids as well for an entire year last year so that they wouldn’t have to switch schools and it was totally worth it. I feel like I’ve gained so much time now that I don’t have to do it anymore.
Have you considered using an Internet option that connects to LTE networks (I know Michelle from Making Sense of Cents had shared some information about her setup traveling in an RV full- time)? That’d be so tough to manage a blog without Internet!
Unfortunately we don’t even have LTE network access at our house! We get occasional bits of 3G, but not enough connectivity to load a webpage, just enough for my phone to check for new email! It’s kind of crazy!
Wowza! Sounds like it’ll be expensive then! It’s nice you went into the home purchase already knowing you’d have to take care of the Internet issue. Unplanned expenses in new home ownership are the worst!